


Questions for a Bad Dog

by TheOtherWesley



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Doggos - Freeform, Dogs, Gen, Illustrations, Ley of Leithian, Maiar, Min/Max-ing Maiar Theory, Oromë's Maiar, POV First Person, awoooo, they're good dogs Bront
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 12:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16555451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOtherWesley/pseuds/TheOtherWesley
Summary: There are some questions only wolves can answer





	Questions for a Bad Dog

I am the White Hound of Oromë

I am a Maia. My Master’s people do not take the shape of Men. We do not quite fit.

A Maia can choose to do many things; whatever skills or powers we put our Will into, we grow strong in that thing. Many can be more than one shape; I will always be this one. My mind and purpose are Hound-shaped. This fits me best.

I do not have as many skills as other Maiar. I do not craft, or write, or make laws. My songs are all hound-songs, my dances are running, wagging, leaping. It is my fate to speak in the language of Men

Three

Times

Only.

 

I do not mind. These things are not things I need. I gave them up in order to put all my Will towards fulfilling my purpose:

I kill wolves.

Not deer-hunters, not first-hounds, before-hounds, not foxes or wild dogs (though I could kill these too, if I wanted). Wolves that are the enemy of my Master and the Children of His Master. I run them down, I crush their throats. I tear out their bellies, bleed their loins.

There is no wolf I cannot kill, and there is one wolf that will kill me. I do not know yet, which wolf it will be. I will keep hunting until I meet it.

Not every Maia has a fate. I am proud to have mine. I am happy to be the White Hound, my Master’s hound, the servant of my Master’s servant.

I was given to him as a gift: my Master’s favorite hunter, MY hunter. Now I run where he rides, and we chase game together. He gives praise to Oromë when he eats the hearts of his kills, and shares what is left with me.

If I speak to him in my own tongue, he understands, just as he understands the tongues of birds and deer and all four-footed things. But ours are simple languages, no good for important words or long talks. It is just as well, for I do not need to ask him who is right, who is wrong, where we are going, or for what cause he fights. I know who to protect. I know who is the enemy. I know who lets me lick butter from their fingers under the table, who has room on the end of their bed for me every night, who howls with me when we course through waves of yellow grass.

What more does a good hound need to know?

* * *

 

_“How did you know when to leave your Master? How did you decide?”_

The black wolf blinks, the third eye on its forehead winking shut with vertical lids. For a moment, I do not know if he understands; if we have lost the ability to speak as Maiar, or as dogs.

 _“That is what you wish to learn, before you die?”_ he asks, poison spilling from his jaws. Every hair on my back knows he is the enemy, that he is what all dogs everywhere were born to guard against in the night. But this is a question I can only ask someone like him– even if I am sick to trembling with the thought that even  _asking_  it brings me closer to what he is. These are feral questions, not fit for a good hound, a loyal hound. 

“ _I do not know yet if you are the wolf that will kill me,_ ” I say, “ _and you are the only one I know to ask, who has left their home forever.”_

He bristles at the neck, his paws flexing and restless on the haunted stone. What I say rankles him, and he is as eager as I am to feel fur and flesh between his teeth; but more than anything, he likes to talk, especially about himself.

_“There came a time when I knew I could no longer obey my Master’s wishes and still remain true to myself. The trust that had been the walls and floor of my world crumbled, and could not hold me. Life as it had always been became impossible. It was almost no choice at all.”_

The wolf is a liar, but his words find instant recognition in my heart, and my ears flatten in sorrow.

_“Did you try to right what was wrong between you and your Master?”_

_“I did.”_

_“And did your Master listen?”_

_“It makes no difference that he knew what I wished for,”_ the wolf’s snout wrinkles,  _“he had no use for me as I am, only as I had been to him, when life was as simple as obeying one’s purpose.”_

It hurts— it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, but I know it is true. The change has already happened, the decision made for me. My hunter long ago became something more, or something less, than his wild howl, his clear-eyed coursing. I cannot be the hound of one who hunts his own kind, baying only for power, his stalking grounds the stone halls of palaces, his prey the minds and hearts of men. There is another I must follow, whose voice is sweet and whose purpose is as fierce as my own. I love her— no less and no more than I will always love my hunter, whose quick heels I can no longer bring myself to follow.

_“Thank you for your answer, wolf. I see my path more clearly now.”_

_“Much good may it do you, when I send your pitiful ghost running tuck-tailed back to Aman.”_

The wolf’s back stands as high and as wide as an aurochs, black bristles shining like sharpened quills in the moonlight, his glowing teeth drawn like daggers.

Sauron, the lord of werewolves, can appear as many shapes; he is a much stronger Maia than I will ever be. But today he has chosen to be a wolf— and I am Huan.

There is no wolf I cannot kill.

* * *

 


End file.
